Texas congressman Silvestre Reyes and Charlie Gonzalez rarely have a good word to say about Republican presidential candidates, but they’re defending former House Speaker Newt Gingrich”s “humane” stand on immigration issues.

That’s the word the two veteran Texas Democratic politicos used to describe the position espoused during the most recent presidential debates by the Georgia Republican who has soared into first place in recent GOP presidential polls.

They have another word for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s stances on the hot-button political issue: “extreme.”

In last Tuesday’s presidential debate, co-sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and CNN, Romney repeated his 2012 campaign position that he would turn off the “magnets” that attract people to enter the U.S. illegally. These magnets, he argues, include in-state tuition (backed by Perry) and any kind of government benefits such as public education and health care.

In doing this, Romney believes that immigrants staying illegally in the U.S will “self-retreat.”

“They will go to their native countries,” he says.

But Gonzalez, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, says Romney “has placed himself in a camp that is [mass] deportation” of the estimated 12 million people without legal permission to remain in the U.S.

“It is not practical,” the San Antonio Democrat told reporters on a conference call. “It is not pragmatic. But most of all, it does not serve the economic interests of this country.”

Gonzalez, who announced today that he will not seek re-election in 2012, called Romney’s immigration latest immigration position “totally unworkable and extreme in nature,” but said the one-time social moderate had veered far to the right “because he has got to go extreme in order to out-pander the competition.”

Rep. Silvestre Reyes (AP photo)

Reyes, D-El Paso, the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, says GOP candidates other than Gingrich have played cynical political games on the immigration issue.

“The only thing they’ve done is pander the extremists on the right that think we ought to completely seal off the U.S.-Mexico border,” the former El Paso region Border Patrol chief said. “And, by the way, they are silent about the Canadian-U.S. border.”

A Vietnam War veteran of Mexican descent, Reyes takes a passionate stance on the immigration issue.

“I fought to defend an America that was founded as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws,” said Reyes.

His vision is one shared by most Americans, he believes.

“In President Obama’s and my vision of America, families who have been here for over 25 years, who have paid their taxes, who are integral parts of our communities and churches, should not be separated,” Reyes says. “Even Newt Gingrich can agree with that. In the president’s and my vision of America, young men and women who volunteer to risk their lives in defense of this country, should be thanked, not tossed out.”

Reyes and Gonzalez referred to Gingrich’s view on immigration as “humane” and say they hope he will remain unwavering in this position. However, they are fearful that he will start to back away from his belief in finding a reasonable solution and fall back on the traditional argument of securing the borders.

“You have heard Gov. [Rick] Perry do the same thing” when Republican conservatives denounced his immigration record as “liberal,” Gonzalez noted.